


Port-Ed 2

by rcmero



Series: Port-Ed [2]
Category: Ed Edd n Eddy, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Adaptation, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on deviantArt, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Novelization, On Hiatus, Wordcount: 15.000-25.000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcmero/pseuds/rcmero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many, many years after the Eds' adventures in Aperture Science, they find themselves trapped in the facility again. With the help of a new friend, they must now try to escape Aperture, but not before seeing "her" again... </p><p>Contains SPOILERS for Portal 2, single-player and co-op.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Courtesy Call

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic logo below. I made it myself, too!
> 
>  
> 
> You can also read this story on [deviantART](http://rcmero.deviantart.com/gallery/35499130) and [Fanfiction.net](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7861246)!

_"Good morning. You have been in suspension for_ _**-FIFTY-** _ _days."_

Edd groggily opened his eyes, a feeling of nausea washing over him as he started to regain consciousness. He got up from his bed, cringing at the bright sunlight pouring in from the window. He gritted his teeth. He must've slept in again -

Wait, this wasn't his bed.

Edd gasped, and looked around the room he stood in. It was small, like a motel room, containing a bed and a few counters. He quickly realized that it _was_ a motel room, with an old TV hung up on the wall near the corner, a coffeepot waiting on a counter in front of the bed, and an old minifridge sitting against the wall. To top it all off, the walls had a tacky wallpaper depicting large palm trees, as if the room was barely trying to give the illusion of being on a beach.

_"In compliance with state and federal regulations, all testing candidates in the Aperture Science Extended Relaxation Center must be revived periodically for a mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise."_

A male voice spoke in a neutral yet slightly upbeat tone. Edd looked around to find who had said that, but he quickly deduced that it was an announcement or recording. His mind still half-asleep, he mentally picked apart what he'd just heard to try and understand it. Federal regulations, testing candidates -

Aperture Science.

Where had Edd heard that name before? It definitely sounded familiar, but the more he tried to remember where he'd heard it, the more that other, irrelevant memories began to flood his mind.

_"You will hear a buzzer. When you hear the buzzer, look up at the ceiling and stretch your arms as high as you can."_

A loud noise suddenly filled the room, causing Edd to cover his ears until it ended. The man's voice seemed off to Edd, he thought as he obediently stretched out. Not only did it sound like a recording, but each word seemed disconnected from one another, and there were odd inflections dotted about each one. It sounded computerized almost, as if it was made with a sound synthesizer.

_"Good. You will hear a buzzer. When you hear the buzzer, look down at the floor and touch your toes."_

Another buzzer rang. Edd tried and failed to touch his toes, focusing more attention on asking how the apparent recordings knew that he'd completed the exercise. Was he being watched?

 _"Good. This completes the gymnastic portion of your mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise_."

That hardly counts as gymnastics, Edd thought to himself. But was better than Gym class, at least.

" _There is a framed painting on the wall. Please go stand in front of it._ "

Edd found it surprisingly hard to walk. His legs were stiff, and resisted when he tried to move them. Strangely, though, he found he had a spring in his step - literally. It was then that Edd finally noticed that he wasn't wearing his usual attire. In lieu of his orange shirt and purple pants, he found himself wearing a darker-orange jumpsuit. He looked down to see that he was wearing strange boots. They were white and reached the top of his knees, and shaped like high-heels. Instead of a heel at the back, a large piece of metal stretched from the top of the boot and curved under it. The piece of metal expanded and contracted under his weight, making him bob up and down with each step. He also felt extremely comfortable standing in them.

Who put him in this attire? Edd's mind was riddled with questions. At least he was fully awake now - how long did it say he was in...suspension? His mind raced as he walked around the bed to view a small painting hung up on the wall behind it. It depicted a small cottage next to a lake, with a large mountain providing the backdrop.

" _This is art. You will hear a buzzer. When you hear the buzzer, stare at the art._ "

Once again a loud buzzer rang, followed by a ticking noise. Edd stared blankly at the painting, his attention focused on contemplating why they would require people to do these things in such an abrupt manner-this Aperture Science place. Darn, why is that name so familiar?

" _You should now feel mentally reinvigorated. If you suspect staring at art has not pro_ _vided the required intellectual sustenance, reflect briefly on this classical music._ "

Soft, soothing music began to play, and Edd actually recognized the piece. He made the mistake of listening intently, only for the buzzer to interrupt right in the middle of it and make the boy flinch.

" _Good. Now_ _please return to your bed._ "

Go back to bed? But he'd already been asleep for - fifty days. Edd suddenly remembered very clearly; the Announcer had clearly said fifty days.

Oh god, where am I? Edd suddenly began to panic. Where was he? Why was he here, in "suspension" for fifty whole days? He quickly found the door to the room, only to find that that the handle wouldn't budge.

" _Please return to your bed. Your suspension has yet to reach its termination date._ "

A faint hiss emanated from the ceiling, and the sound sent a strange, familiar wave of fear up Edd's spine. The feeling quickly began to die down, however, as he felt himself getting more and more tired. He stumbled back to the bed, the last rational thought in his head telling him that he should at least fall asleep - or rather, get knocked out, somewhere comfortable. He pulled the covers over his shoulders and closed his eyes, wondering if this was all a strange dream.

* * *

Strange dream. Strange dream. Strange dream -

" _Good morning. You have been in suspension for - **nine- -nine- -nine- -nine- -nine- -nine- -** "_

The voice continued to rattle off a series of choppy, disconnected "nine"s as Edd groggily opened his eyes. Adding to the noise was a pounding sound, coupled with a voice - a different, less computerized voice.

"Hello? Anyone in there? Hellooo?"

Edd got out of bed, struggling to pull himself out of the body-shaped crater he was once in. His mind felt blank, but he could remember traces of what happened earlier. The room was dark; light barely seeped through the large window, and everything looked aged and decaying. Right now, though, the only thing he could concentrate on was stopping that annoying knock.

"Are you going to open the door? At any time?"

Edd stumbled toward the door, giving a loud groan in lieu of a proper answer. The voice on the other side sounded friendly but panicked, as if the man was in a rush. It was flavored with a charming British accent, and Edd grew curious as to what he looked like.

"HA! I knew someone was alive in here!"

Edd jiggled the handle, and was surprised to find that it opened. He was then surprised that he was _surprised_ that it opened - why had he expected it to be locked from the outside? Edd's attention quickly turned from that, as he saw who was at the other side of the door.

"AHHH! Oh. My. God. You look terribl- ummm… good. Looking good actually."

Edd couldn't believe his eyes. It looked like an eye, a large, robotic eye the size of a kickball. It had a bright blue iris with a pupil that dilated and constricted as it spoke, various shutters resembling eyelids, and two handles that moved up and down. They al made it seem very expressive and lifelike. It hung from the ceiling on a metal rail, and glided into the room from it. It seemed familiar to Edd, and made him uncomfortable.

"Are you okay?" the thing asked. Before Edd could answer, it continued, "Don't answer that. I'm absolutely sure you're fine. There's plenty of time for you to recover. Just take it slow."  
" _Please_ _prepare for emergency evacuation,_ " the Announcer spoke up.  
"Stay calm! Stay calm!" The thing sounded nervous, as if it - or he, Edd guessed - was saying that to himself more than he was Edd. "'Prepare' – that's all they're saying. 'Prepare.' It's all fine. Alright? Don't move. I'm gonna get us out of here."

With that, the eye followed the rail to the center of the room's ceiling, where a small hatche opened up. It went in, and was pulled into the ceiling and out of sight. Suddenly, Edd felt the room shake from under him. He heard what seemed like a loud motor from above, and wondered if the entire room was moving.

"You alright down there?" Edd realized that he hadn't said a word to this thing, despite having so many questions to ask it He opened his mouth, but all that he could get to come out was an affirmative "Uh!"

After a short while, Edd felt the room jerk to a stop, and the eye dropped back down from the ceiling.

"Alright now, first things first, I believe I should introduce myself to you. Don't know why I didn't do that before, actually." He spoke in short, choppy sentences, as if trying to get a bunch of things out of the way as quickly as possible. "Well then, my name's Wheatley. Now I wanna be serious for a sec with you. You see, most test subjects do experience some...cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension."

Memories of the poor excuses for "exercise" came into Edd's head, and he gave a quiet snort.

"Now you've been under for… quite a lot longer, and it's not out of the question that you might have a very minor case of _serious brain damage_."

Edd jumped. Was this thing serious?

"Don't be alarmed, alright?" Wheatley tried to console. "Although… if you do feel alarmed, try to hold onto that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being told that you've got brain damage."

He waited a bit to let Edd soak in his words.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? At all? Does any of this make any sense? Just tell me. Just say yes."

One again, Edd tried to speak. Getting air through his vocal chords turned out to be a skill he'd forgotten, and articulating his mouth to form words was a lost art. He knew what to say - he refused to believe that he had any sort of cerebral impairment, his vocabulary being proof of that - but his body had a hard time doing what his mind wanted. He breathed a few nonsense words, before he finally gave up and simply nodded.

"Okay, what you're doing there is nodding," The eye pointed out. "You just nodded. But never mind. Say apple. Aaaaaple."

Edd opened his mouth, ready to give speaking another shot when he suddenly heard:

"Aaaaple-brain! What're you doing over there?"

Edd clamped his hands over his mouth. Did he say that? No, of course not. But that voice sounded familiar.

"You know what?" Wheatley concluded, heading back toward the door. "That's close enough. Just hold tight, I've found one more I gotta get into position."

For a short while, Edd was alone again. He practiced talking, mouthing words before quietly applying his voice to them. The ridiculousness of it all was not lost on him, but he felt relieved to be able to speak again. At last, he finally raised his voice and asked, "Who said that?"

"Double D?" Edd suddenly recognized the voice, and a wave of relief washed over him.  
"Eddy? Is that you?"  
"Double D, it is you!" Eddy agreed. "Is that jerk gone yet?"  
"You mean Wheatley? He said he had 'one more to get into position', whatever that means."  
"I think it's talking about us."  
"What?"  
"You felt your room move around and shake and stuff, right? Hey, maybe it's getting Ed!"  
"Oh god, I'd forgotten about him!" Edd hugged the wall behind the bed, where he could hear Eddy the clearest. "Where do you think we are?"  
"Heck if I know," Eddy replied. "I just remember getting the best sleep I've ever had - except for waking up of course. Man, how long was I out?"  
"I have no idea." Oh god, Edd thought. How long _have_ they been here?  
"That Wheaters guy'd better get back here with Ed soon. These rooms are crumbling apart?"  
"Really?" Edd looked around, but other than age, the room looked stable and intact.  
"Mine got a big hole in it when that guy moved it. In fact, I wonder..." His voice trailed off, and before Edd could ask what he meant, he heard a loud bang. Suddenly, he saw a small foot jutting from the wall, adorned in the same kind of strange boots that Edd wore. It quickly pulled back and kicked at the walls again, knocking away enough of it to make a hole connecting Eddy's room and Edd's.  
"Am I awesome, or am I awesome?" he gloated, strutting into Edd's room. He also wore an orange jumpsuit, but he had taken off the top half and tied it around his waist, leaving his chest covered by a white undershirt.  
"Eddy, do you know how much trouble we could get into doing that?" Edd asked, deciding to ignore asking about his friend's fashion choices.  
"Double-D, I wouldn't worry about getting in trouble here." Eddy's voice suddenly turned serious, and he motioned for Edd to follow him through the hole into the other room.

Edd complied, and saw that Eddy's room was identical to his, save for a large hole in the window. Edd looked through it, and gasped. From what he could see, they were in a gigantic warehouse, suspended over a pit so deep that Edd couldn't see the bottom. Shipping containers were stacked hundreds upon hundreds high, all of them aged and covered in vegetation.

"Double-D, I think we've been out for a while."  
"I think so too, Eddy."

At that moment, they heard another motor approach them. Their rooms rumbled slightly, and they could hear Wheately talking with someone faintly from the other side of Edd's room. The two Eds headed over there, and they heard Ed's voice.

"Applesauce!"  
"Eh, close enough I guess."

Thank god he's alright, Edd thought.

"Yo Ed! Bust through this wall and get in here!" Eddy shouted, knocking on the wall opposite to the bed. Edd opened his mouth to protest, but Ed had already burst through the wall with a laugh. Wheately was no longer in Ed's room, but they could hear a gasp of surprised coupled with a "What just happened over there?"  
"Hi, guys!" Ed chimed, ignoring the eye's voice. "Now that the terror of the Generic Lifeform and Disco Operational System is taken care of, the three Eds must reunite their portal-powers to save the world!"

Edd and Eddy exchanged glances, and the former said, "My my, Ed. That was abnormally specific compared to your normal outbursts. Did you really make that up on the spot?"

"H-huh?" Ed looked confused. "You mean you guys don't remember? Apathy Science, the super awesome portal guns, the giant robot lady who tried to kill us?"  
"Ed, what kind of dreams have you been having?" Eddy asked. "It felt like I was asleep for a few friggen' seconds."  
"It wasn't a dream! We really did -"

The Announcer at that point spoke up.

" _All reactor core safeguards are now nonfunctional. Please prepare for reactor core meltdown."  
_ "Ah, you're all in the same room now!" Wheatley chimed as he entered Edd's room. "That makes things a bit easier now! Alright, look," he kept talking as he went up through the ceiling and started up the motor, "I wasn't gonna mention this to you, but I'm in _pretty_ hot water here."

The room suddenly jerked to life, and began to move. The holes in the walls grew, and cracks began to spread from them as the place lifted upward.

"The reserve power ran out," Wheatley explained, "so of course the whole relaxation center stops waking up the bloody test subjects!"

The room swung forward and suddenly jerked, as if it hit something. The walls began to crumble away, giving the three boys clearer and clearer views of the enormous warehouse around them as they sailed through it.

"And of course no one tells ME anything," Wheatley continued. "Nooo, why should they tell me anything? Why should I keep kept informed about the life functions of the ten _thousand_ bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?"

The room made its way through rows and rows of shipping containers, clumsily bashing into one every now and then.

"And whose fault do you think it's gonna be when the management comes down here and finds ten thousand flipping vegetables?"

The Eds held on to whatever they could grab for dear life. The space between the bed and the closet was the least broken, and Edd scrambled to stabilize himself as it jerked and tossed him about. The window had completely shattered, giving them a wide view of where they were headed. The room approached a moldy wall, with the words " **DOCKING STATION 001-04 600 FEET BELOW** " barely visible printed on it.

"On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks," Wheatley explained. "There's a piece of equipment in there we're gonna need to get out of here."  
"Oh boy, I think I know what it is!" Ed exclaimed.  
"Hold onto something. I think is a docking station." Suddenly, the boys felt the room swing forward, rapidly picking up speed as it flew toward the wall. Edd and Eddy quickly dove behind the bed - which appeared to be bolted to the floor - and braced themselves while Ed simply stood in the middle of the room. It slammed into the wall, causing Edd and Eddy to lift off the floor and plop back down and not appearing to affect Ed's stance at all.  
"Watch it up there, you jerk!" Eddy shouted to Wheatley.  
"Hold on down there, will ya mate? I think this is a docking station, but it looks like it's down. I'm gonna attempt a manual overwrite on this wall here. Could get a bit technical. Hold on!"

Edd opened his mouth to try and point out the words on the wall, but Wheatley quickly rammed the room into it again. After a few more attempts, the wall finally broke away. The room the Eds were in was almost completely destroyed, with nothing intact but the bed and parts of the floor. Wheatley lowered from the ceiling and began to talk.

"That was a wild ride," he said. "But don't worry, I think I'm okay."  
"We're the ones who're okay!" Eddy sputtered. After a short pause, he added, "I mean, you should be glad that _we're_ not hurt, since you banged us around like that!"  
"Well, you look alright to me," Wheatley said. "Now that everyone is up and running, I believe it is time you three get into the testing area. Probably in no fit state to do so, but at least you have each other."  
"Wait, you're leaving us?" Edd asked.  
"No no no," he defended. "I just can't follow you into that room. Y'know, what with my rails and all. Just go ahead, do your best, and I'll see you up ahead,."

After a moment's hesitation, Edd stepped forward from the room to the hole in the wall, followed by his friends. He carefully crossed over various debris until he found himself walking over a pane of glass. He was standing over some kind of room, which looked familiar to him. Ed and Eddy stepped on the glass as well, and before Edd could turn around and warn them, it broke underneath their weight and dropped them into the room.

" _Hello_ , _and again welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment_ Center." The Announcer's voice rang through the empty room as the Eds picked themselves off the floor. _"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support, so that science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social, economic or structural collapse._ _The portal will open and emergency testing will begin in three. Two. One._ "

Portal?

Suddenly, two strips of metal positioned vertically along a concrete wall in the room began to light up. They glowed a bright orange, and something sudden formed between them. It was an ellipse, an oval of a strange, pulsating, and orange energy large enough for a person to crawl through. On the other side, Edd could see himself and his friends - only it was from a different angle. He looked to his left, and saw another ring of energy - only this one was blue.

They were portals.

They were _portals._

A flood of memories came washing back to Edd. He remembered waking up in Aperture Science, testing with cubes and buttons, then portals. He remembered the pits of acid, the orbs of energy that could vaporize him, the incinerator, the cake. Oh god, the cake.

And he remembered GLaDOS. All the quirky, nasty things that robot had said to him and his friends.

"Ed, you weren't lying," Edd said, dazed.  
"Told ya."  
"Double-D? What're you talking - " Eddy gasped, apparently having a similar epiphany. "Oh. Oh god."  
"I guess we're not out of the woods yet," Edd mused. He remembered the sight of his freedom being taken away as the robot dragged him back into the facility. "In fact, I think we may be far from it."


	2. Portal Guns and Military Androids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a trip down memory lane as the Eds tackle the first test chambers.

The feeling of passing through a portal never ceased to astound Edd. No matter how quickly he moved, he could clearly feel that whatever part of him that was currently on the other side of the hole was in a different place in space altogether. It was as if stepping through would cause an impossibly thin blade to cut through him constantly as he passed, only without causing anything to separate from him. It didn't hurt, but the feeling passing through his body as he transcended the space between the orange and blue rings was definitely not one of his favorites. Nonetheless, he refused to contemplate on it further as he found himself heading toward the first testchamber he had ever solved.

" _Cube- and button-based testing remains an important tool for science, even in a dire emergency,_ " came the Announcer's voice. " _If cube- and button-based testing caused this emergency, don't worry. The odds of this happening twice are very slim._ "  
"You don't think _this_ guy's come crazy robot like that one chick, do ya?" Eddy asked as they entered the chamber. It was as dilapidated and worn as the previous one, with lush, green plant life worming through cracks in the dirty walls and ceiling. A gigantic, once-bright-red button sat on the floor, glowing weakly. A large cube sat next to it, dropped from a tube protruding from the ceiling long ago, waiting patiently for someone to solve the test.

Edd walked up to it, but reconsidered trying to move the thing when he saw how filthy it was. Embarrassing memories of the first time he had to move a Weighted Storage Cube by hand and the soreness of his back when he had done it came back to him as well, and he took a step away. With a simple, "Ed, if you'd be so kind," he sighed in relief as his large friend effortlessly ripped the thing away from the moss gluing it to the floor and dropped it carelessly on the button. With a crunch, the button sank into the floor and gave off a few sparks. The round door marking the exit of the chamber sprang to life, and jittered open begrudgingly.

"Guh. I think I actually liked this place better when it was all clean-like," Eddy grumbled as they passed through. A strange odor wafted by, and after assuring it didn't come from Ed, he muttered, "At least it didn't smell so funky."  
"That's the toll of Father Time, Eddy," Edd said. His gaze gravitated toward the ground, and he mumbled, "Oh god. How much time _have_ we spent here?"  
"Come on, guys!" Ed shouted, skipping ahead on his boots, "Solving puzzles is fun!"  
"That's the spirit, Ed!" Edd called, his mood lifting a little. Putting a box on a button hardly counts as a puzzle, he figured, but at least Ed enjoyed it.

The three entered the next testchamber. Walls of glass partitioned the large room into four parts: the entrance, a room containing a cube, a room containing a button and the exit door. Despite the deteriorated state of the place, the glass was still intact, and there was no way to pass between the rooms through normal means. Luckily, Edd quickly noticed that in front of each room was a small button on a pedestal, and an orange portal opened up on a wall behind the boys. Without a blue portal to connect to, the orange ellipse was filled with the shimmering, glowing color.

"Buttons!" Ed exclaimed, running up to one of the pedestals. He quickly stopped himself before pressing it, and asked, "Um, it's okay to press it, right? It's not a trap?"  
"No, Ed," Edd chucked. "I think it's part of the test. But I do commend you for being cautious like that. What with the state of this place and all, we mustn't assume the best and make the wrong decisions."  
"Who cares? Let's just solve this thing and get outta here," Eddy grumbled.

Ed pressed the button in front of the room with the cube, and a blue portal opened up inside it. He turned around and quickly hurried through the orange portal. Giving a cheery wave at Edd and Eddy through the glass, he picked up the cube and stepped back into the main room with it. Eddy pressed the button resting in front of the room with the floor button, and the blue portal dissolved from its previous place and reappeared there. Ed walked through and placed the cube on the button, opening up the door to the exit. When Ed came back, Edd pressed the final button and the blue portal shifted to the exit room.

The boys wasted no time hurrying through to the exit. They came to a short flight of stairs, which stepped down into a cylindrical room. Situated in the middle of it was a large tube, and what appeared to be an elevator slid down it and opened up for the boys.

"The elevator's...smaller than I remember," Edd commented as the three tried to squeeze into the tight space.  
"Yea," Eddy grunted. "I think these things were built for one."

When it was able to close, the elevator quickly descended down the tube and further into the facility.

Once the elevator landed, the boys popped out for a breath of fresh air and the announcer spoke up.

" _If you feel liquid running down your neck, relax, lie on your back and apply immediate pressure to your temples. You are simply experiencing a rare reaction in which the Material Emancipation Grill may have emancipated the ear tubes inside your head."_  
"What does _that_ mean?" Eddy shouted.  
"Don't worry Eddy, we've passed through Portal Fizzlers before," Edd explained. "GLaDOS gave that bit to me before. Tooth fillings, ear tubes, whatever. We're still okay."

The three climbed up the stairs in the elevator room and headed toward the next testchamber. Behind a wall of glass in front of them was a thin podium, bent and sparking. Edd recognized the place as the room where he'd first received his Portal Device, and fondly remembered experimenting with it.

"Hey-hey! You made it!" a voice called. From behind some broken panels, the boys saw Wheatley rolling along a rail. His blue eye glowed in the darkness, but he looked happy to see them. Now that he had gotten his memories back, Edd noticed that the metal eyeball looked a lot like the cores attached to GLaDOS's body. He shivered as he remembered their screams when they were thrown into the incinerator, but he quickly assured himself that Wheatley must be something different.  
"But of course we made it, dummy!" Eddy teased. "It's not like these stupid tests are hard."  
"Okay then...there should be a portal device on that podium over there." Wheatley tilted his optic up, signalizing the Eds to the pedestal. "I can't see it though...maybe it fell off? Any of you three wanna take a quick look?"

The area around the floor was especially cluttered, as panels from the ceiling had fallen off and broken into pieces. Edd figured even something as fairly large as the Portal Device could be hidden under there, but a chill down his spine warned him from approaching.

"First one there's a rotten egg!"

Ed ran haphazardly toward the podium. Eddy quickly followed, and Edd tried to pull them back. It was too late, however, and as soon as Ed reached the center of the room, the floor gave out from underneath all three of the boys. They fell for a good thirty feet, but when they hit the ground it didn't hurt. In fact, it felt slightly bracing, a sudden rush of energy accumulated from the half second of free fall that lifted Edd's spirits.

"Hello? Can you see the portal gun?" Wheatley called from above. "Also, are you all alive? That's important, should have asked that first."  
"I'm okay!" Ed yelled to Wheatley in his usual happy-go-lucky self.  
"We're okay!" Edd shouted. "These boots work just like the knee-replacement springs!" After saying that, he suddenly gasped, and rubbed the back of his knees. Just underneath the top of his boot, he could feel something rough and jagged protruding from his skin. He suddenly realized that his heelsprings must've broken off in GLaDOS's explosion, and he suddenly began to wonder who dressed him-and his friends-in these strange boots.

His attention turned to Eddy, when he saw his friend trying to strangle Ed for dumping them down a hole.

"Oh, you _are_ alive, thank goodness!" Wheatley called. "Well then, since I can't get to you guys from down there, here's what I'm gonna do: I'll just wait for you guys up ahead, okay? One hour's okay, right... hum..." It then occurred to Edd that the machine didn't know their names.  
"Oh, where are my manners? We haven't told you our names yet!"  
"A few names would be handy. But not too many - I'm not too good with very different names."  
"Well you're in luck then! My name is Eddward, with two Ds, but you can call me Double D. The short one is Eddy and the tall one is Ed."  
"Ya didn't have to do that, Double D. I could have introduced myself, ya know," Eddy grumbled.  
"Ah, that _is_ convenient!" Wheatley continued, "Alright, Ed-s, I'll wait one hour for you up ahead then, is that okay?"  
"I suppose so," Edd responded. "In the mean time, we'll go find the Portal Device."  
"Great! See you in a hour then!" And with that, they heard Wheatley roll away on his rail.

The boys traversed the unruly area, sloshing around in a shallow pool of dirty water. They were clearly not in any sort of testchamber, the the place was just as overgrown and worn down. Sunlight streamed in from above, and glinted off something in the distance. Hope welling up within him, Edd raced toward it. A circular staircase of what appeared to be concrete panels suspended on hydraulic arms lead to what could only be the Portal Gun.

"I call it!" Eddy shouted, racing up the steps and grabbing the gun.  
"Aw, Eddy, I wanted to use it!" Ed complained.  
"Um, guys." Edd pointed at a patch of wall lit up by the sunlight. The other Eds turned their attention to it, and immediately lost interest in the Portal Gun.

On the wall was a mural, depicting the three of them. Cryptic drawings were scrawled all over the room on every untarnished surface, all depicting the three boys and various objects and happenings from Aperture Science. Following the paintings from around the room, Edd found that they told his story from start to finish; as if they were religious paintings, they depicted him going through the testchambers, ignoring the siren-like temptations of cake from GLaDOS, then meeting up with Ed and Eddy as they saved him from a fiery death. It depicted the three of them battling the rogue Artificial Intelligence as if they were mighty warriors, and then showed them asleep in the Relaxation Rooms.

"Way cool!" Ed awed.  
"Dude, has someone been watching us the whole time?" Eddy asked. "That's kinda creepy."  
"Aside from that Wheatley fellow, we are most certainly not alone," Edd mused. Looking up, he noticed a blank orange portal near an exit. "But come on, we must keep moving."

* * *

It was worn and had lost its glossy surface, but the Portal Gun worked just fine. Edd had taken the liberty of using it while Ed and Eddy fought amongst themselves over who got it first. It fit his hand like a glove, with a handle containing two buttons for either color portal and a thumb ring to activate the tractor beam. However, he noticed that the second button was jammed, and he couldn't fire orange portals by himself. Despite that, the blue portals connected to the pre-made orange ones that opened up when the facility sensed the boys were near. After finally getting Ed and Eddy settled down by getting them to agree to take turns, Edd and the others traversed the backside of the facility. After a while of walking, the Eds reached a broken window with a testchamber on the other side. Having faith in their boots, they jumped down into it, and the announcer spoke up again.

" _Some emergency testing may require prolonged exposure to lethal military androids. Rest assured that all military androids have been taught to read and provided with one copy of the Laws of Robotics. To share."_

Edd felt a tingle up his spine as he remembered the "lethal military androids" the announcer was mentioning. He quickly looked around out of reflex, but none of the little turrets were to be found. After a deep breath, he shrugged it off and recalled the chamber the boys were in. There was an orange portal on the other side of a pit too long to jump. Edd immediately recalled what to do and fired a blue portal on the wall next to him, allowing them to cross.

"Wait up, Double D!" Eddy hopped through the portal to catch up to Edd. Ed quickly followed. Another pit awaited them, and Edd handed the gun off to Eddy. He grimaced for a minute, trying to figure out what to do; the orange portal was with them, so he'd have to fire a blue one...  
"Ahah!" He took the gun and fired the blue portal across the gap.  
"Don't get too excited, Eddy," Edd said. "These are only the simplest of puzzles in this place. We can't even control both portals."

Eddy grumbled, but silently handed off the gun to Ed. Edd considered what he had said; without a gun that could create two portals, they'd be out of luck the moment the facility couldn't create an orange one where they needed it. He contemplated as the boys found themselves heading toward another elevator.

" _If you feel that a lethal military android has not respected your rights as detailed in the Laws of Robotics, please note it in your self-reporting form. A future Aperture Science Entitlement Associate will initiate the appropriate grievance-filing paperwork."_

With a humorless chuckle, Edd crammed into the elevator with his friends and they headed deeper down into the facility.


	3. The Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clumsyness on Wheatley's part reactivates "her"...

The Eds went through the chambers rather quickly, despite them being in such a decayed state. The puzzles were nothing new to Edd, but Ed and Eddy fought over who got to use the Portal Gun and where to place the next portal. Edd decided to stay out of it, letting the two try on their own to solve puzzles and offering hints when they got stuck. He wouldn't admit it, but Edd thought the tests were actually quite fun to solve with his friends.

As the Eds entered the elevator for yet another chamber, another one of the announcer's messages came up.

" _The Enrichment Center reminds you that, although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone. All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low-power environments of as few as 1.1 volts._ "  
"That's quite amazing, actually," Edd mused as the elevator made its way downward. "If only such efficient technology wasn't in the hands of a place such as this."

As usual, the Eds had difficulties leaving the elevator, with everyone wanting to come out first. Once they squeezed themselves out, they found themselves in another test chamber. The sign indicated that it was testchamber number 7. Edd noticed an old Energy Pellet emitter in the corner, but it was detached from the wall and in disrepair. In fact, the chamber was more destroyed than the others, and the exit was blocked by rubble.

"Hey! Oi oi! I'm up here!" a voice called. The Eds looked up, and in the back corner of the room was Wheatley. He gazed at them from his rail, suspended above the ceiling where the panels had fallen out between the chamber they were in and an adjacent one.  
"Look guys!" Ed pointed towards the wall where Wheatley was located, near an orange portal emitter.  
"Great! You guys did find a portal gun! Go ahead then, pop a portal on the other side of that wall over there, and I'll meet up with you."

Since this was Eddy's turn with the gun, he quickly fired it and went through the orange portal. Once all three Eds were through, the portal closed behind them, and they found that they were in another inescapable chamber.

"Okay, let me lay something on you here," Wheatley said in a distressed tone, "It's pretty heavy. They told me never, _never_ , _EVER_ to disengage myself from my management rail, or I would _die_."

As soon as Ed heard the word "die", he gave out a short scream.

"Y-you alright there?" Wheatley asked.  
"Ignore him," Eddy responded. "He's stupid like that sometimes. Go on."  
"Ah, yes. Anyway, as you can see, I'm kinda out of options here." He gestured toward the end of the rail, which was broken and detached from the rest of it. "So get ready to catch me then, on the off chance that I'm NOT dead the moment I pop off this thing. On three. Ready?"

All three boys stepped forward to catch him, but ended up bumping into each other. Ed knocked the other two boys down, and Eddy pounced on him for doing so.

"Err, maybe _one_ of you should try to catch me."  
"I'll do it," Eddy announced. "Twinkle-toes here isn't the most athletic, and Ed'd probably just drop you or something."

Edd grumbled under his breath, but didn't say anything.

"Alright, that sounds good. You're short, too, so you should be quick enough to - " Eddy scowled at him, and the core shyly averted his gaze. "Um, I mean, you look...I'm sorry, okay? Will you just catch me please?"  
"Oh, fine. Just get on with it."

With a nervous grunt, Wheatley began to count down. "Okay, I am going to disengage myself in three...two...o - " He suddenly backed up from the edge, saying "Woa woa woa, too high! That is, uh, that looks way too high."  
"Oh come on!" Eddy shouted. "Just do it!"  
"Okay okay, I just - Agh!" The core suddenly dropped from his rail. "Catch me! Catchmecatchmecatchme!"

Eddy dove to the floor with the Portal Gun in hand, surprised by Wheatley's sudden fall. He overreached, however, and the metal eye smashed into his back.

"Ow! Oh, my...I...am...not dead. I'm not dead!" A short laughter came afterwards. "Thanks for the catch, Eddy!"  
"Y-you're welcome, officer," Eddy moaned drunkenly. Edd quickly helped him up to his feet, and he snapped his spine back into place. Ed grabbed the portal gun gingerly from the ground and picked up Wheatley with it.  
"Okay now then, plug me on that stick on the wall over there." Wheatley said.

The Eds turned towards the wall Wheatley's optic was pointing at. To their surprise, one of the panels swung down, revealing a computer console and what looked like a tube-shaped receptacle next to it. Ed quickly took Wheatley to the panel and plugged him into the tube. The core's eye rotated in place while he let out a quick electric buzz, and then said, "Good good, I'm in."

The Eds watched in amazement as the core sat in the receptacle.

Staring at them.

Doing nothing else.

"Well?" Eddy asked impatiently.  
"Yeah...I can't do it if you guys are watching."  
"Seriously?"  
"Do - do you think you could turn around? It'll just take a second. I just can't concentrate with you three staring at me like that."

Eddy groaned and Edd gave a small chuckle, and the two grabbed one of Ed's arms to turn him around as they did. After a short while consisting of a series of bleeps and bloops from behind them, the Eds were given the okay to turn around. Next to the control panel, a section of wall gave a hydraulic hiss and swung open, revealing a passage way.

"BAM! Secret panel. That I opened. While your backs were turned. Pick me up, and let's get out of here."

Eddy readied the Portal gun, but Ed quickly picked up Wheatley in his own arms and jovially dashed through the passage.

"And off we go!"

* * *

The backbone of the facility outside of the testing areas was as lonely and unnerving as Edd remembered. The boys crossed hallways and catwalks that seemed to stretch on forever as broken testchambers and cavernous rooms surrounded them. The four reached a peculiar square hallway, with a large, armored door protecting it. The door opened up as they drew near, and Wheatley began to speak.

"Probably ought to bring you up to speed on something right now. In order to escape, we'll have to go through _her_ chamber. And she will probably kill us, if she's awake."

Edd didn't even need to ask who she was, for he already knew. GLaDOS. The memory of that homicidal monster had returned in detail, and he swallowed at the thought of it.

"Well sittin' here will lead us nowhere," Eddy said, rather optimistically. "Come on! She's down and out. I know it." The core lifted its lower lid and made a bright expression in Ed's arms. Eddy quickly leaned toward Edd and whispered, "Psst. Double D, he's taking about that crazy computer lady, right?"  
"I think so, Eddy." Edd whispered back. "At least I hope he is. The last thing we'd want is for _another_ homicidal AI to get past."

By the time they had finished whispering to each other, Ed was already running towards GLaDOS' chamber. Edd recognized the hallway that lead to her room, the bridge that spanned an enormous pit that he couldn't see the bottom of. Luckily it was still intact, but it was crumbling and broken.

"Wait up, monobrow!" Eddy called.

* * *

"There she is..." The Eds stood in the center of GLaDOS' chamber. The roof was destroyed and more plants had invaded this area more than anywhere else the boys had seen. In the center of the room was GLaDOS – or what was left of GLaDOS, anyway. Her body was strewn across the floor, lifeless yet intimidating. Her parts were covered in dust, but not a single plant had grown on her, as if they were afraid to. Edd saw it as a testimony to the terrifying power she had once had.

"What a nasty piece of work she was, honestly," Wheatley said. "Like a proper maniac. Do you know who ended up taking her down in the end?"

Eddy was going to respond to Wheatley's question, but Ed closed Eddy's lips tight, interested in what the core was going to say.

"You're not going to believe this," Wheatley continued, "Three humans." Edd cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing. "Apparently, these humans escaped and nobody's seen them since."

Edd didn't know if he should tell Wheatley the truth or not, but he decided to keep quiet, just in case.

"Then there was a sort of long chunk of time where absolutely nothing happened, and then there's us escaping now. So that's pretty much the whole story, you're up to speed."  
"How very...informative," Edd said. "I can only imagine who these 'three humans' were."

Past GLaDOS' chamber, through a part of the wall that had crumbled away behind the incinerator, the gang traversed down a few staircases. Edd noticed that they began to double back where GLaDOS's chamber was, heading along catwalks underneath it until they reached a small doorway. Inside it was a cylindrical room that extended far above them, and almost every inch of it was covered in large switches.

"This is the main breaker room," Wheatley explained. "Look for a switch that says ESCAPE POD."  
"There's a gazillion stupid switches!" Eddy yelled.  
"Well, the sooner we start searching, the sooner we can get out of here," Edd consoled. "Ed, could you give me a boost?"

With an "Okie-dokie!" from Ed, Edd felt himself get hoisted up from underneath and he began to check the switches higher up on the wall. The room was small, but the amount of switches seemed endless.

"Can you guys see it anywhere?" Wheatley asked. "'Cause I can't see it anywhere."  
"I told you already there's a gazillion stupid switches! We'll never gonna find the right one!" Eddy yelled.  
"At least not in this darkness," Edd added. "I have to get right up to each switch to see the tiny label in this amount of light."  
"Ed! Find anything yet?" Eddy asked.  
"What are we looking for again?"  
"Look for a switch that says ESCAPE POD." Edd explained.  
"Tell you what," Wheatley suggested. "Plug me in down there, and I'll turn the lights on."

The receptacle in the center of the room opened up. Ed, careful not to let his friend fall from the top of his head, turned around and placed Wheatley in the receptacle. Once he did, the lights in the room lit up.

"'Let there be light.'," the core announced. "That's, um, God. I was quoting God."

Once Wheatley finished speaking, the floor suddenly turned sharply to the right. A gate closed over the doorway, and the boys were locked inside.

"Oh! Look at that! It's turning. Ominous. But no reason for alarm, as long as it doesn't start moving."

Suddenly, alarm buzzers sounded, shocking Ed and making Edd fall painfully to the uneven floor below. The floor began to rise up, scraping along the walls and forcing all of the switches upward.

"What the heck're you doing!" Eddy screamed. "Stop this thing before you do something bad!"  
"Don't worry, Eddy. _This_ should slow it down!"

Wheatley concentrated on something, the computer confirming his actions with a ping, and the platform began to rise faster.

"This is the kind of thing I expect _Ed_ to do!"

The ceiling above them opened up, and the gang was lifted right into GlaDOS's chamber.

" _Power-up initiated._ "

Ed and Eddy immediately started to panic. Walls rose up around them and kept them from running away. Edd could only helplessly watch as GLaDOS's body began to move. The cables hanging from the center of the room went taut, and began pulling her pieces back together.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Ed yelled.  
"She's gonna kill us!" Eddy added.  
"Okay, stop panicking!" Wheatley tried to calm down the Eds. "I can still stop this!"  
"And just how are you going to do that?" Edd asked. He clutched the Portal Gun, looking frantically for something - _anything_ \- to place a portal on.  
"I'll just stop the rebooting process - Oh, there's a password. I can hack it. No problem." The core's eye dilated and his voice changed to monotone. "A, A, A, A, A, A."

A buzzer rang, signifying an incorrect password. Wheatley tried again.

"A, A, A, A, A, C."

The buzzer rang again.

"Wait, did I do B? Do any of you have a pen? Start writing these down!"

Edd placed a palm to his forehead.

_"Power-up complete."_

The three boys watched in fear as GLaDOS returned to her former self. She writhed and swung around drunkenly, waking up from the long sleep she had been in. Then, without warning, she straightened up and glared right at the three boys with her optic.

"`Oh... it's you three`."  
"You KNOW her?" Wheatley asked in amazement.  
"More than ya think, Wheatley," Eddy replied.  
"`It's been a looooong time... how have you been?`"

Edd opened his mouth to reply, but the AI quickly interrupted.

"`I've been _reeeeeeally_ busy being dead. You know, after you three MURDERED ME.`"  
"YOU DID WHAT?" Wheatley looked at the Eds as if they had just grown a pair of horns.

Suddenly, four mechanical claws rose down from the ceiling. One of them grabbed onto Wheatley, pulling him out of the receptacle while the other two caught hold of Edd and Ed. Edd gasped as he lost grip of his Portal Gun and dropped it. Eddy quickly dodged the fourth claw before it could grab hold of him, and he used the wire it was attached to to climb out of the small room they had been trapped in.

GLaDOS didn't seem to notice his escape, and she pulled the other three up closer to her. She cast a glance at Wheatley, and without a word the claws suddenly pinched him hard, causing sparks to fly from him and cracking his optic. She then tossed him aside like a piece of garbage. Once again, Eddy reacted quickly, and caught Wheatley as he was falling down. GLaDOS turned her attention to Ed and Edd.

"`Okay, look,`" she said, her voice soft but full of malice, "`we all said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monsters.`"  
"You're the monster here, you big meanie!" Ed accused.

GLaDOS ignored Ed as she swung the two boys around the room. They stopped right over an incinerator. _The_ incinerator.

"Oh dear."

Edd knew what was coming. GLaDOS was going to throw Ed and Edd down into the fire, like the cores the Eds destroyed a long time ago. He would've laughed at the irony had he not been so terrified. He desperately wished he had his Portal Gun, but it lay helplessly on the ground far away.

Eddy grabbed Wheatley and inspected him. He sparked and sputtered some nonsense words, and his artificial eyelid drooped down halfway. Eddy wondered if the core had just died, and worry welled up within him. However, Wheatley's body still hummed lightly, like a computer on Standby mode. He's probably just out cold, Eddy thought in relief.

He turned to his friends, and found he could do nothing but watch as GLaDOS dangled them over the incinerator. Suppressing his impulse to retaliate, he noticed the door to the chamber was open and crept toward it.

"`I will say, though,`" GLaDOS continued, "`that since you went through all the trouble of waking me up, you must really, REALLY love to test."`  
"Well, I do find the puzzles to be quite enjoyable, but - "  
"`I love it too,`" GLaDOS interrupted. "`There's just one small thing we need to take care of first.`"

The incinerator opened up beneath them. Instead of a red, fiery glow beneath them, however, Edd saw that it stretched deep down into the darkness. He and Ed gave one final gulp before they were suddenly dropped down into it.

Holding back tears and rage, Eddy snuck out of the room, an unconscious Wheatley in hand.


	4. Core Transfers and Deadly Lasers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed and Edd solve the first of her new test chambers--strangely familiar to Edd.
> 
> Meanwhile, Eddy finds a way to reactivate good ol' Wheatley...

* * *

"Brace yourself, Ed!"

Ed and Edd fell down the square metal chute, the latter frantically looking for something to slow their descent and the former simply laughing in glee. The fall went on for quite some time, but the chute suddenly began to slope forward and back, and the two boys found themselves dodging large crushers that nearly flattened them on their way down.

At last, the tunnel ended and the boys fell through open air. A ways below them was a metal platform, and they landed on it with a hard crash. Edd could feel his legs trembling like mad from beneath him, but as he straightened his body out, he sighed in relief to find that nothing was broken. Ed wasn't any worse for the wear either, happily shouting "Do it again! Do it again!" as he bounced in glee.

"`Here it is,`" GLaDOS's voice rang from above, `"the incinerator room. Be careful not to trip over any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here."`

Edd looked around at the enormous room the two boys stood in. It was rectangular like a hallway, stretching up hundreds of feet. On either wall were rows and rows of chutes that dipped downward, guiding trash and debris toward a glowing, fiery pit below. Edd gasped. This was the very room GLaDOS had tried to kill him in, until Ed and Eddy saved his life.

Wait. Eddy...

"Where's Eddy?" he gasped. Ed looked around, and a panicked expression formed on his face when he realized his short friend was missing. Edd suddenly looked up. "Oh dear, don't tell me he's still up there with that monster!"

Suddenly, Ed and Edd heard a voice coming from above. Way above. To their surprise, it wasn't GLaDOS's voice.

" _Relax, sockhead. We're just fine up here._ " Eddy's voice rang through an intercom, echoing through the incinerator room.  
"Eddy!" Edd exclaimed. "Where are you?"  
" _That crazy computer lady's no match for my elite dodging skills. Me and Wheatley are doing just fine. Well, I'm OK. Not Wheatley. I tell ya, sockhead, this guy's a mess right now._ "  
"Where _are_ you, Eddy? And how can you see and hear me?"  
" _I'm in one of these old viewing areas. Ya know, to watch the testers and stuff._ "  
"Oh yes, I see."  
" _Well it turns out, one of these old computers is still running. So I tried to see what I could see, and I found a camera running on that incinerator room you're in._ "

Edd looked up and saw an operational camera on the wall. It was pointing straight at him with its glaring, red lens, but picturing Eddy behind it made Edd feel less unnerved.

" _And, lucky for me, this thing has a working microphone and speaker thingy._ "  
"Well, I'm just relieved to hear you're fine."  
" _I'm okay, but this guy isn't. She really laid a number on him, you know._ "  
"Do you think you can fix him?"  
" _Me? I dunno. I'm not a tech wiz like you, Double D._ " His voice seemed to lower in regret.  
"Don't give up on him, Eddy! He's our only friend in this place!"  
" _I'll see what I can -_ "

Suddenly, static blared from the speakers. Eddy's voice came in bits and pieces through it, but Edd was able to make out, " _I think she's trying to cut me down, Double D. She knows what I'm doin' here!_ "

"Get out of there, Eddy! Take Wheatley with you and run!"

More static started to come out until eventually, the sound ceased altogether.

"`I had forgotten about that boy. He was so _tiny_ and _insignificant_ that the thought of grabbing him slipped my mind.`" GLaDOS's voice resumed dominance over the place, and she spoke with a bitter tone. "`If I wasn't just waking up and focusing on diagnosing all of the damage that _you boys_ did to this place, I wouldn't have let him leave that little room alive. But then again, he's too _little_ of a problem to worry myself about."`

In the distance, Edd could've sworn he heard a faint voice scream, " _Little_?"

* * *

Eddy fumed in anger until he began to cough. He hadn't raised his voice that high or loud in quite some time, and he still felt like he had just woken up. He looked at the once-intact glass window of the observation room to find it shattered, and suddenly felt quite vulnerable. Deciding it was time to keep moving, he picked up Wheatley and left to explore. Constantly looking back to make sure he wasn't being followed, Eddy traversed the employee hallways of the building as he heard machines whir to life around him. Something caught his eye, and he found a door labeled **CORE TRANSFER.** He looked at the label, and then at Wheatley.

_A core, huh?_ Eddy thought to himself. _This could be just the thing._ He opened the door and peered inside. Seeing nothing but blackness, he groped around the inner wall to find a lightswitch. His hand hit a button, and the room begrudgingly lit up. Inside, there were eye-shaped metal orbs all over rows of shelves, shaped just like Wheatley was. In the center of the room were two receptacles, and a small control panel between them.

Eddy looked at the cores on the shelf, then to the receptacles, and then to Wheatley. A smile grew on his face, and he said to himself, "Looks like I don't need to be as smart as Double-D after all."

He carefully placed the damaged Wheatley on one receptacle and grabbed a spare core from one of the shelves. He noticed that each one had a different color for its iris, so he took care to try and find a blue-eyed core before putting it on the other receptacle. He analyized the control panel, which contained a few buttons, and eagerly pressed one marked **Transfer Memory**.

" _Core transfer initiated,_ " the announcer spoke up.  
"Sure hope this works..." Eddy said to himself.

* * *

Edd felt a smile grow on his face as he looked at the ground before him. Two portal guns, dusty but otherwise fully operational, lay patiently on the floor. His smile faded, though; lifting rubble and debris off of said portal guns were two panels on hydraulic arms, fully controlled by GLaDOS. Ed quickly bent down and grabbed one of the guns, but Edd hesitated.

"`Go on. I assure you it's safe,`" GLaDOS said, lifting the debris a little higher. Edd bent down, and slowly reached for the device. The panels suddenly dipped down, but stopped just before they hit his outstretched arm. Edd grabbed the gun and recoiled in panic, and the panels slammed to the floor. "`Oops. My bad,`" the AI spat sarcastically.

Edd clutched the device, his anger and fear toward his predicament matched by his excitement. Looking around, he found a place where he could shoot a portal at. He wasted no time in holding the device properly and using it, but he gasped as he noticed that instead of a blue and orange portal, his gun shot an orange and a red pair. Marveling at the new color, Ed readied his device, and place a pair of portals of his own. His were blue and purple.

"`As part of an old cooperative testing initiative we ran a while back - a _long_ while, that is - many of our test subjects would get confused with identically-colored portals, resulting in many accidents. Unfortunately, I wasn't around back then, so instead of embracing this new challenge, our old, soft employees gave them new colors to work with.`"  
"How fascinating! I -"  
"`Keep in mind that due to this convenience on your part, your tests shall be much, _much_ more difficult to compensate.`"  
"Drat."

The two Eds made their way through a long, square trench as GLaDOS continued talking.

"`Do you know the biggest lesson I learned from what you did?`" she asked.  
"Well, no actually. Do tell." Edd responded.  
"`I discovered I have a black-box quick-save feature. In the event of a catastrophic failure, the last two minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was able – well, forced, really – to relieve you killing me. Again. And again. **Forever.**`"  
 _No wonder she's upset,_ Edd thought to himself.  
"`You know,`" GLaDOS continued, "`if you done that to somebody else, they might devote their existences to exacting **revenge**. Luckily I'm a _bigger_ person than that. I'm happy to get this all behind us and get back to testing. After all, there is a lot to do, and only sixty more years to do it. More or less. I don't have the actuarial tables in front of me.`"

Edd tried not to show fear, but he found himself instinctively clutching his device as he and Ed made their way through the beginning of Testchamber 19. They went through the entrance to the chamber to the elevator room, where their ride was waiting for them. They got in, and headed deeper down.

* * *

" _Core transfer complete,_ " the announcer said.

The eye on the new core lit up a bright, pale blue. The core was aged, and the iris had a few cracks on it, but it sprang to life nonetheless.

"Are ya OK, Wheatley?" Eddy asked.  
"Oh, what happened?" he asked drunkenly. He looked around for a bit, and then exclaimed, "Oh, Eddy! Did you...wait, it's coming back to me now. AUGH! Where are we? Where is _she_?"  
"Calm down, I just saved your metal butt. Ed and Double-D though... they're in her clutches."  
"Oh, no," the core lamented. "That is not good at all." His face suddenly brightened up, and he said, "Well, let us not waste their sacrifice and get the hell out of here while she's focused on – OW!"

Eddy slapped the core, and screamed in pain himself as the metal hit his hand harder than he'd expected. "We're _not_ leaving them behind, got it?"

"Okay okay! Sorry, I just thought you wanted to get out of here."  
"'Course I do, but not without my friends." Eddy plucked Wheatley from the receptacle and put him under his shoulder. "Now, where do you think we oughta go?"

* * *

"`Sorry about the mess,`" GLaDOS stated, "`I really let the place go since you killed me. By the way, thanks for that.`"  
" _Sarcasm self-test complete,_ " the announcer spoke up.  
"`Oh good, that's back online,`" GLaDOS continued, "`I'll start getting everything else working while you perform this first, simple test. Which involves deadly lasers, and how test subjects react when locked in a room with deadly lasers.`"

Edd recognized the chamber he and Ed were in. It was an early chamber where he was introduced to Energy Pellets. However, he noticed that instead of the dome-shaped emitter sprouting from the ceiling, a different apparatus was placed into the room in lieu of it. It suddenly emitted a thin, red laser that cut through the air and formed a perfectly straight line to the ground below. Ed moved toward it, hypnotized, but Edd quickly pulled him back.

"Remember, Ed, she said _deadly_ lasers," he reminded. Ed let out a small "Aw," but he admired the spectacle from a safe distance.

Noticing that the place the laser was firing at was a white panel, Edd fired a portal onto it. He saw the Energy Pellet receptacle sink into the nearby wall and be replaced with what could only be a receiver for the laser. Across from it was another portal-accepting piece of wall, and Edd fired the other portal on it. A row of dotted lights next to the receiver lit up as the laser hit it, redirected through the portals, and a lift rose up to the exit to the room above. Ed ran toward the lift and jumped as high as he could, but it was out of reach.

"Clever," Edd mused as he placed a portal away from the laser. The lift deactivated and sank back to the floor. Edd led his friend on to it, and the two boys stood on the platform as he reactivated the lift, taking them to the exit.

"`Not bad,`" GLaDOS spoke up. "`I forgot how good you are at this. You should pace yourself, though. We have **a lot** of tests to do.`"

Edd did not doubt that in the slightest.


	5. Discouragement Redirection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new test chamber element is introduced: the Aperture Science Thermal Discouragement Beam. Ed and Edd solve the first two tests with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second test chamber in this chapter was taken from Portal 2 co-op. It's fairly early in, though, so not too many spoilers.

"`This next test involves discouragement redirection cubes. I'd just finished building them before you had your... well, episode. So now we'll both get to see how they work. There should be one in the corner.`"

Ed and Edd advanced forward out of the elevator and towards the testing area. In their way, another bright red laser cut through the air horizontally at knee level. The boys easily jumped over it, Ed more enthusiastically than his friend. Looking around, Edd spotted a cube behind some debris in the far corner of the room. Placing a red portal on the floor below the cube and an orange portal on the floor next to them, he caught it as it fell down and popped up at his side.

Edd examined the cube, which was different than any other he had seen before. Instead of being solid, it was hollowed out. Five of its six faces had glass lenses adorning them, while a strange, mirror-like device in the center pointed toward the sixth face, which sported a smaller lens encased in what looked like a crosshair.

Ed gasped.

"Ooh! Ooh! Lemmie see it, Double-D!" he shouted.  
"Be my guest, Ed," Edd replied, handing the object over to Ed. He had an idea of what they were supposed to do, but he was more curious as to what Ed thought of it.

Ed took the cube and shoved it in front of the laser. With an electric _"zing!",_ the inside of the cube lit up brightly, and the laser immediately bent in the direction of the crosshair side. Edd mentally congratulated his friend, and watched as Ed turned the cube to point the laser in different directions. There was a receiver on a nearby wall, and Ed guided the laser to it. The receiver came to life like in the previous test chamber and a group of panels on the floor rose to form makeshift stairs to a higher ledge.

"Great job, Ed!" Edd congratulated. "Now let's go through that staircase. I think I see a button up there."

Ed and Edd went up the stairs to the area above. There was indeed a button connected to the exit door there, but nothing to weigh it down with. Puzzled, the two looked around for something to use. Edd found his attention going back to the Redirection Cube, and noticed that the floor underneath it could hold a portal. He gave Ed a slight nudge, and the boy got the same idea.

"Ooh, I know this one! Can I do it?"

Edd nodded with a smile, and Ed fired a purple portal under the cube. He then fired a blue portal on the floor next to him and Edd and picked up the cube as it came through. Edd congratulated Ed out loud this time, and placed it on the button. The cube acted like any other, and the door opened up before the two.

"`Well done," GLaDOS spoke up. "`Here come the test results..."` There was a pause. `"You are horrible people. I'm serious, that's what it says: horrible people. We weren't even testing for that.`"`

Edd simply scoffed, but his face lightened when he heard Ed giggle beside him.

"She's funny, Double-D," he whispered.

The elevator area of this test was different than all the others Ed and Edd had seen. Instead of a single elevator, there were now two of them, side-by-side. Edd remarked about its convenience and entered one of the elevators, but suddenly became very nervous when Ed entered the other.

"These had better lead to the same place," he muttered under his breath. Both elevators began to descend, and the boys headed further into the facility.

* * *

"`Don't let that 'horrible people' thing discourage you. It's just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mothers' decision to abandon you two on a doorstep.`"

Edd was quick to notice that this next test was designed to be solved by more than one person. There was a Discouragement Redirection Cube sitting near a laser up ahead. There were two concrete walls sitting on either side of a new apparatus near the laser. It looked like a cone of sorts, but made of glass. Curious, Edd used the cube to redirect the laser into a portalable wall. He placed a portal on it and another on the wall next to the glass cone. The laser passed through it, and the cone began to spin. A series of lights on the floor next to it lit up, heading toward the exit door. The door didn't open, though, as it also needed to be powered by a receiver.

"I see. Ed, please fire your portals on the wall over there," Edd asked.

Ed placed a portal at the end of the laser and his other one before the receiver. The laser hit it, going through all four portals and the two receivers, and the door opened up.

"`Congratulations," GLaDOS spoke up. "`Not on the test. Most people emerge from suspension terribly malnourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds.`"`

_Oh great, now she's making fat jokes,_ Edd thought. Once again, though, he heard Ed giggling beside him, and he made a note not to let this computer's petty insults get to him. In light of that, he giggled a little himself, and the two boys stepped into their elevators to continue testing.


	6. Faith Plates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first tests involving the Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate are done in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm shifting focus back to Eddy and Wheatley in the next chapter, I promise.

"`This next test involves the Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate,`" GLaDOS stated as Ed and Edd entered the next test chamber, "`It was part of an initiative to investigate how well test subjects could solve problems when they were catapulted into space. Results were highly informative:`" She paused, and then said, "`they could not. Good luck!`"

Test chamber 5 was much larger than most of the others Edd had seen. It was rectangular and very tall, with the exit right across from the entrance. Separating them was a large pool of sickly-green goop, which Edd wasn't too happy to see again. A tiny island in the middle lay beneath a cube dropper on the ceiling.

On the floor on either side of the room as well as the middle island, a peculiar device lay flush with the tiles. It looked like a flat, glass paddle, and had an orange light indicating it was functioning.

The two boys approached the device, one with caution and the other with curious enthusiasm. Behind it on either side of the room, a square section of floor tilted forward a little, and a bright neon-blue bull's-eye was painted on both of them.

"Ooh, ooh, can I go first?" Ed asked.

Edd gave a quizzical look. "How exactly do you 'go' on this thing?"

"I think like this!" Ed jumped onto the Faith Plate. As soon as his feet touched the glass paddle, it sprung upward, catapulting the boy high up across the room. Edd watched in astonishment as he landed dead center on the bull's-eye near the exit.

"Again! Again!" Ed shouted, jumping on the Faith Plate on that side as well. Like the first one, it rocketed him across the room and he landed on target near Edd. "Again!" And then he jumped back.

After a few more trips back and fourth by his friend, Edd had built up the courage to try out the Faith Plate himself. He considered stepping on it one foot at a time at first - but then realized that if it went off before he could get both feet on it, it would catapult him at an angle and into the goop. He eventually decided to go Ed's way and jump on it with both feet.

The plate slammed into his long-fall boots and propelled him forward in the air. If Edd had eaten anything in the past day - plus _however_ long he was in suspension - he would've lost it as he landed on the exit side of the room.

"Isn't this fun, Double-D?" Ed asked.  
"Not my cup of tea," Edd replied, holding his stomach.

The exit door was shut, and connected to a nearby floor button. A second button on a pedestal faced toward the island in the center of the room, and Edd gave it a press. A cube dropped from the ceiling and onto the faith plate in the center island. The device caused the cube to bounce back high in the air directly back upward, and it continued to bounce up and down without losing any height.

"Ed, do you think you can grab that?" Edd asked. "It'll require some timing."  
"Can do, Double D!" Ed replied. Without hesitation, he hopped onto the faith plate and launched across the room, missing the cube entirely.

Edd sighed. Of course Ed wasn't going to time it, not when he could bounce back and fourth all he wanted. Edd figured the boy would just run into the cube sooner or later, and found a clean-looking spot on the floor to sit down. The test chambers were becoming more crisp and updated as they went, with old and grimy panels being replaced with new ones.

At last, Ed finally collided with the box in midair, and the two crashed into the exit platform. Edd helped his friend up, and put the cube on the button.

"`Here's an interesting fact:`" GLaDOS spoke up as Ed and Edd made their way to their respective elevators. "`You're not breathing real air.`"  
"Come again?"  
"`We just take carbon dioxide out of a room, freshen it up a little, and pump it back in. So you'll be breathing the same room full of air for the rest of your life.`"

_Oh dear,_ Edd thought. He worried for a little while, but as he entered his elevator, he scoffed at how silly the idea was. Even if she wasn't lying, there would be plenty of air for the two boys, circulated or not.

Unless she really _was_ going to keep them around for sixty-odd rooms.

_Oh dear._

* * *

"`Let's see what the next test is,`" GLaDOS told the two Eds as they were leaving their elevators. She then gave out an "`Oh`", as if she was surprised. "`Advanced Aerial Faith Plates.`"

_From introduction straight to advanced,_ Edd thought to himself. _Why am I not surprised?_

"`Have fun soaring through the air without a care in the world,`" GLaDOS continued. She sourly added, "` _I_ have to go to the wing that was made entirely of glass, and pick up fifteen acres of broken glass. _By myself._`"

Ed and Edd entered test chamber 6. Like the last, the room was dominated by a large pit of green, potentially deadly liquid. Several islands jutted from it, each sporting an Aerial Faith Plate facing in a different direction. Seeing a pedestal button nearby, Edd pressed it, and watched as a cube dropped from the ceiling and onto a faith plate nearby. It bounced through the room, hitting one faith plate after another until finally it collided with a tilted piece of wall and dropped into the muck below. The panel responsible was next to a second one held at the same angle. Ed pictured in his mind a cube shooting from the second panel, and saw that it would land on a ledge near the exit.

"Can I go first, Double D?" Ed asked.  
"Go on right ahead, Ed," Edd agreed. "But first..."

Edd fired portals on the two panels, and allowed Ed to jump. The boy bounced around the room, from one faith plate to the next, and Edd silently prayed that his idea would work. Ed flew toward the panel and into the portal placed on it, and came rocketing out of the second one. As predicted, the boy landed safely on the ledge. Edd sighed in relief, and the two boys waved to each other.

Pressing the button again, Ed followed another cube as they made their way bouncing throughout the room and then to the exit ledge. When they got there, however, Edd noticed that the only button was out of his reach, beneath a ceiling that could hold a portal. Smiling, Edd dropped the cube into the green water, and placed a portal on the ceiling above the button. Another pedestal button was accessible to the boys, and when Edd pressed it, the cube dropper on the other side of the room opened up. However, instead of a cube falling out onto the chain of faith plates, an assortment of random objects spilled onto it, and were flung about the room.

"`Oh, sorry. I'm still cleaning up the test chambers. So sometimes there's still trash in them. Standing around. Smelly, and being useless. Try to avoid the garbage hurtling towards you.`"

Edd scoffed, seeing the trash go nowhere near them as it piled up on the button, weighing it down enough to open the door.

_You'll have to do better than that,_ he thought as they went through.

"`Remember when I was taking about smelly garbage standing about being useless?`"  
"Yes," Edd replied.  
"`That was a metaphor. I was actually taking about you two.`"

Edd went silent, save for a quiet, "I'll tell you later" when Ed asked him what a metaphor was.

"`I'm sorry. You didn't react at the time, so I was worried it sailed right over your head. Which would have made this apology seem insane. That's why I had to call you garbage a second time just now.`"

Even Ed didn't seem to find much humor in her words this time around, and the boys silently stepped into their elevators and continued testing.


	7. Companion Cubes and Light Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend of Edd's makes a surprise appearance...

Ed and Edd left their respective elevators and entered test chamber 7. It was taller than it was long or wide, and the ceiling was all but gone, allowing for sunlight to pour into the room. Edd couldn't tell if it was real or just another one of GLaDOS's tricks, but he savored the warmth on his face as he looked up. He quickly shook himself, remembering the task at hand, and scanned the chamber. The exit lay near the top of the room, while an inactivated lift leading to the bottom lay at an area in between. Edd could tell already there was going to be some flinging involved, and his stomach tingled at the thought.

First things first, though, was to figure out how to get the lift down to them. A Discouragement Beam fired horizontally by their feet, activating a receiver that lead to the lift. A cube lay tranquilly at the other end of the chamber. Its hearts seemed to glow as Edd approached it -

"It - it can't be..."

It was a Weighted Companion Cube.

Edd couldn't believe his eyes. He ran towards the cube to get a closer look. The second he got near it, however, a bolt of energy from an unseen source struck it, and it dissolved into glowing particles that vanished before the boy's eyes.

"`Oh. Did I accidentally fizzle that before you could complete the test? I'm sorry,`" GLaDOS purred. "`Go ahead and grab another one.`"

As GLaDOS finished speaking, another Companion Cube landed on the ground in front of Edd, exactly where the last one was. Edd was shocked, but he was surprised to suddenly feel a tear running down his cheek.

"What's the matter, Double D?" Ed asked.  
"W-well, it's a bit ridiculous, actually," Edd stuttered. His friend's expression didn't waver from that of concern, and Edd realized that the boy was going to take him seriously. Gaining a bit more confidence, he asked, "Have you ever felt so lonely you had to, well, befriend an inanimate object?"  
"I have a lotta objects as friends, Double D! I have my sponges as friends, and I also have a piece of cheese, and-"  
"That's enough, Ed," Edd interrupted. "What I meant to say was that while I was by myself in this gigantic facility, I came across a test that utilized a Companion Cube such as this one." He gestured toward the box, bracing himself in case GLaDOS decided to fizzle it again. "I had to take it with me throughout the test, as it was crucial to completing all the steps. It even helped protect me in some of the more dangerous parts of it. At the end, I was forced to incinerate it to complete the test. For some reason, I had a lot of difficulties in doing so, but I ended up doing it anyway."

Ed tilted his head to the side, trying to piece together what his friend had told him.

Edd sighed and continued. "Let's just say, I became friends with a cube. _This_ cube, as it were, or at least one that looked like it." Taking a closer look, Edd realized that the cube looked different from the one he knew. The area around the heart had a different design, with a circular strip of light that glowed softly occupying it. It was a small difference, but Edd kept note of it.

The boy picked up the new cube gingerly, and tried to place it in front of the laser to see if it would bring the lift down. As soon as he brought it near the beam, however, it disintegrated.

"`Oh. No. I fizzled that one too,`" GLaDOS spoke up. "`Oh well. We have warehouses _FULL_ of the things. Absolutely worthless. I'm happy to get rid of them.`"

Another Companion Cube dropped into the chamber.

"I think she knows that," Edd noted.  
"Knows what?" Ed asked.  
"How I felt about the last Companion Cube. Besides _her,_ it was my only company in the tests, and I felt an attachment to it. Now she's trying to use that to bother me, and it's working."

Edd picked up the third cube and placed it in front of the laser. As expected, the lift glided down to the floor, where the two boys boarded it. Ed fired a purple portal under the Companion Cube and a blue portal on the wall. The cube went through the portal, reactivating the receiver and sending the two Eds upwards.

* * *

"Oh yeah, this is what I'm talkin' about!"

Eddy carried Wheatley around the seemingly endless facility, looking for a way to save Ed and Edd. On a particularly decayed section of the facility, which hadn't seen any repair work from GLaDOS on yet, Eddy noticed a bird's nest. In it, he found a few eggs.

"Bird eggs? Hey, maybe we can use these, Eddy!" Wheatley spoke up.  
"Yeah!" He scooped them up and put them in his pocket. His confidence shattered, however, and he muttered, "Sure hope there's no bird around looking for these. I hate birds."  
"What are we going to do with these?" Wheatley asked Eddy.  
"What? _You're_ the one who suggested it!" the boy yelled. Before Wheatley could reply, Eddy said, "Wait, I got it! She's just a big, glorified Double-D invention-thing, right? All we gotta do is throw a few of these in her system, and it'll mess her up! I'll be able to wreck stuff and not have sockhead give me an earful for it!"  
"I don't know, Eddy, you shouldn't mess with her. Who knows what she'll do to you?"  
"Relax, Wheatley! What's the worst that can happen?"

* * *

"`Every test chamber is equipped with an emancipation grill at its exit, so that test subjects can not smuggle test objects out of the test area,`" GLaDOS spoke up. "`This one is broken. _DON'T_ take anything with you.`"

Of course, that was a dare for Edd to take the cube. The boys had to leave it behind in order to reach the exit, but with the emancipation grill gone, Edd quickly worked out a way to bring it to the elevator with them.

"May I, Double D?" Ed asked, portal gun ready.

Edd gave some thought for a while. Perhaps the Companion Cube was necessary for the next test. Perhaps. Or maybe GLaDOS was messing with Edd and the cube would get fizzled like the previous two.

"Go ahead, Ed," Edd replied. It couldn't hurt, he guessed.

Ed placed a purple portal on the wall next to the two and went back through the door. A few seconds later, Ed returned through the portal with the Companion Cube in his gun's grasp. Edd took it with his own gun and proceeded to his elevator.

A sudden sound stopped both boys in their tracks. It rose and fell, struggling to stay audible yet incessant at the same time. Ed and Edd looked at the Companion Cube in front of them.

It was singing.

Tinny, struggling notes came from the box, forming a soft melody. The song was slow but warm, like some kind of lullaby. The Eds looked at the cube's hearts, which seemed to glow as if it were smiling at them.

And then the box suddenly burst into a hundred pieces, which fizzled away until there was nothing left.

"`I think that one was about to say 'I love you',`" GLaDOS teased. "`They _ARE_ sentient, of course. We just have a _LOT_ of them."`

A tear went down Edd's face.

* * *

 ***BOOM!** *

"Ha ha ha! This is great! These turban-things serve as great targets!" Eddy tossed another egg with glee at one of the large turbine engines before him. The goop seeped into the intricate parts, which were already rusted and worn from underuse, and caused the whole thing to collapse.

***BOOM!***

"I'm still not sure about this, Eddy," Wheatley warned.  
"Lighten up, Wheats! Ya need to stop being so negative!" And with that, Eddy threw another egg.

***BOOM!** *

"`What are you doing?`" GLaDOS spoke up.  
"Oh no," Wheatley gasped.  
"Wrekin' your precious facility, what else?"  
"`Stop it,`" GLaDOS requested.

Eddy threw another egg.

***BOOM!** *

"`I told you to stop it!`"  
"Make me!" Eddy dared.  
"Don't say I didn't warn ya, mate," Wheatley sputtered.

The door next to Eddy suddenly opened up. Behind it there was a familiar sight: a turret. Egg-shaped and glossy white, with a glowing, red eye focused on him.

"Oh crap." Eddy remembered the last time he saw one of those.  
" _Hello!_ " the turret stated in a childish voice. A sighting laser pointed from its eye straight at Eddy, and two panels on either side of it opened up to reveal machine guns aimed at him.

Eddy quickly grabbed Wheatley and exited out of the area before the turret could shoot.

* * *

Ed and Edd proceeded to test chamber 9 in silence. In the last chamber, GLaDOS informed them of a problem with the turbines, and had to "leave". She gave them a quick explanation of the test, which meant that she explained it too fast for either boy to comprehend, and didn't say a word since. Edd knew that she was still watching their every move, but he enjoyed the relative quiet as he and Ed entered the chamber.

Before the boys, a faith plate lay on the floor. Edd looked up at the ceiling, where one panel was raised above the others, and contained a portable surface. He shot a portal on it and another on a tilted surface, figuring the faith plate would take them to an elevated part of the test. Edd jumped on the plate, and it launched him straight upward as expected.

What he didn't expect, however, was to hear Wheatley's voice.

"Hey! Hey! It's me! I'm okay!"

Edd caught the slightest glimpse of a glowing blue eye in the space between the portal and the rest of the ceiling before he fell back to the ground. His eyes wide in excitement, he jumped onto the plate again. It did nothing, however, and began to beep noisily at the two boys.

"`Well, I'm back,`" GLaDOS spoke up. "`The Aerial Faith Plate in here is sending a distress signal. You broke it, didn't you?`"  
"Don't hurt me!" Ed immediately assumed a defensive position, throwing his arms over his face.

After a pause, GLaDOS spoke up again.

"`There. Try it now.`"

The Faith Plate stopped beeping, and Edd stepped off of it.

"That was very strange," he mused.  
"What's the matter, Double D?"  
"I could have sworn I heard Wheatley up there."  
"Maybe Eddy fixed him, Double D!"  
"I don't believe he had the technical knowledge to manage such a feat, Ed. Not on his own, anyway."

The boys paused in thought.

"Do you want to see, Ed?"  
"Do I, Double D! Here I come, Wheatley!"

Ed jumped into the Faith Plate. It launched him in the air, but not fast enough to get him through the portal. However, he did see Wheatley among the backs of the panels that made up the ceiling, but couldn't hear what the core had to say.

When he went down, the plate once again started beeping.

"`Hmm, this plate must not be calibrated to someone of your..."` GLaDOS paused for a moment, then said slowly, `"generous... ness. I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight capacity.`"

She played a few beeping sounds, as if pressing buttons manually. A few rang out at first, but then became quicker and more haphazard.

"`You look great, by the way,`" GLaDOS snarked, "` _Very_ healthy.`"  
 _That's what Wheatley told me,_ Edd thought to himself. _I wonder how I really look... I need a mirror now!_

Both the faith plate and GLaDOS stopped beeping, and she told them to try it again.

Ed grabbed Edd's hand and they both jumped on the Faith Plate. They both clearly saw Wheatley, who was rambling something about birds from the short time they could hear him before falling back down.

The two landed and the Faith Plate beeped once more.

"`You seem to have defeated its load-bearing capacity. I'll just lower the ceiling.`"

The panel above Wheatley's area started to descend until it was flush with the rest of the ceiling. Edd felt his heart sink at the same time, but shook it off. Wheatley was alive and well, and Eddy had to have been close by. The boys continued with the testchamber with more determination.

* * *

Eddy heard the whirring noise of the ceiling lowering from his spot in the corner, and tried desperately to finish his business in time. As soon as he zipped his pants up and dashed over to where Wheatley was, however, the opportunity to see his friends was gone.

"Dammit! I missed them!" he groaned.  
"Well, I told you not to _go_ in the corner!"  
"Where else was I supposed to go? The bathrooms are literally ancient!" His frustration melted into worry, and he thought of his friends. "I can't believe I missed them."  
"We can wait for them in the next test, Eddy," Wheatley consoled. "They most likely won't be on any Faith Plate, so..."  
"But what about her? She'll clearly see what we're doing."  
"Trust me on this one, Eddy. Tell you what, plug me in on that rail over there." Wheatley pointed his optic towards a rail next to him.  
"Why?"  
"Do you want to keep carrying me around?"  
"Well, no, but - "  
"Then plug me in why don't ya?"

With a roll of his eyes, Eddy grabbed Wheatley and placed him on the rail. Wheatley quickly glided across it to their destination, nearly leaving Eddy behind.

"Wait up!"

* * *

The two Eds proceeded towards the next test chamber. They waited for the door to it to open up, but to their surprise, sparks began to burst from the door frame. Each side of the door ground to a halt before they could open more than a few inches.

"`Perfect, the door's malfunctioning,`" GLaDOS sighed. "`I guess somebody's going to repair that too.`"

Edd opened his mouth, but GLaDOS interrupted him.

"`No, don't get up. I'll be right back. Don't touch anything.`"

Ed giggled, and Edd tried to hide his relief at the short break they had been given. Suddenly, however, the two heard a tapping noise fill the hallway.

"Hey! Hey, Ed! Double D! Up here!"

Ed and Edd looked up to see an observation room. On the other side of the warped glass were the distorted shapes of Wheatley and Eddy.

"Look, Double D! It's Eddy!" Ed spoke up.  
"Oh, Eddy! Thank goodness you're alright, and you've managed to repair Wheatley!" Edd called.  
"Was nothin'," Eddy bragged.  
"We found some bird eggs up here," Wheatley explained, "Just dropped 'em into the door mechanism. Shut it right down."  
"Aah! Incoming!" Eddy dove to the floor, leaving Wheatley confused. A large, black bird suddenly darted into the room. It flew around madly, trying to peck and scratch the both of them.  
"Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!" Wheatley and Eddy writhed and danced about the room in a frenzy. After a few moments, Eddy managed to lure the bird outside the observation room and quickly shut the door.  
"That was probably the bird, ain't it?" Wheatley said, a hint of panic still in his voice. "That laid the eggs! Livid!"  
"I told ya," Eddy panted between breaths, "I... hate... birds, Wheatley. And this is why!" Eddy turned towards Ed and Edd. "Okay, the point is, we're gonna break outta here! Real soon, we promise!"  
"We just have to figure out how," Wheatley added. "To break us out of here."

Suddenly, the testchamber door began to move.

"Here she comes, here she comes!" Wheatley shouted. He and Eddy quickly made their way out of the observation room. Before they were out of earshot, he said, "Keep testing, you two! Remember, ya never saw us!"

"`I went and spoke with the door mainframe. Let's just say he won't be... well, living anymore."` Edd detected a hint of satisfaction in GLaDOS's voice.

The doors opened up fully, and the boys entered the chamber. Inside was something the two had never seen before. Streaming from a nearby wall was a long, flat strip of what appeared to be blue light. Curious, Edd placed a portal at where the end of the strip hit a wall and another nearby. The strip of light went through the two portals and passed over the floor in front of the boys.

`"These bridges are made from natural light that I pump in from the surface,`" GLaDOS stated. The word "bridges" flicked a switch in Edd's mind, and he cautiously placed a foot on the strip of light. It was solid, and it supported the boy's weight when he stepped onto it fully.  
 _It's too expensive to pump air this far down, yet you pump in enough light to make something_ solid _out of it_? _I do not understand you,_ Edd thought to himself.  
"`If you rubbed your cheek on one, it would be like standing outside with the sun shining on your face.`"

Edd saw a sparkle in Ed's eye, and the latter quickly knelt down and rubbed his face on the bridge.

"It's so warm, Double-D!" he shouted with glee. Edd knelt down, eager to see what it felt like for himself, but his eyes widened when he noticed what was happening to his friend.  
"`It'll also set your hair on fire, so don't actually do it,`" GLaDOS added. Ed lifted his head from the light bridge, every hair on his buzzed head bearing a tiny flame like a candle, and effortlessly patted out the flames. He gave a reassuring smile to his concerned friend, and the two went to work on solving the test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Ed would be stupid enough to do that, lol. :P


	8. The Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She says she has some people Ed and Edd have not seen in quite a while... is she telling the truth?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portal 2 co-op ending in this chapter, beware of spoilers.

Ed and Edd stood at the end of test chamber 15, bent over and panting for breath. It was the first test to involve turrets, and they were more glad to see Edd again than he was to see them. Luckily, however, the new Hard Light Bridges obscured the turrets' vision despite being transparent to the naked eye, and clever placement of them allowed the Eds to solve the chamber without getting shot.

Once they entered their respective elevators, GLaDOS spoke up.

"`I'm looking through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage. I managed to find four with either your last names. Two men and two women.`"

Edd's mind was sent racing as the elevators departed. "I wonder if...no, could she really have...?" he mumbled to himself.

"I haven't seen my mom and dad in a while, Double D," Ed said when they exited the elevators at the next testchamber. "Do you think she has them?"

_I guess Ed figured it out too,_ Edd thought to himself.

* * *

"Did ya hear that, Wheatley?" Eddy told Wheatley. They watched the Eds delve into the testchamber from a gap in the ceiling panels above. "Cryogenic storage... whadda ya think that is?"  
"It basically means a deep freeze, Eddy," Wheatley explained. "Like putting something in a freezer to preserve it, only it's people. Being put into the freezer, that is."  
"Do ya think some of our friends are there?"  
"It can't hurt to check, I suppose."  
"Do ya know where it is?"  
"Of course, Eddy! I worked here once, you know."  
"Well lead the way!"

Wheatley began to roll along his rail away, and Eddy gave a quick, concerned look at his friends before following.

* * *

"`I have a surprise waiting for you after this next test,`" GLaDOS told the two Eds as they left their elevators.  
"Oh, oh, oh! I love surprises! What is it?" asked Ed.  
"`Telling you would spoil the surprise, so I'll give you a hint: it involves meeting a few people you haven't seen in a long time.`"  
"You mean Sarah?"  
"She said 'two people', Ed. I think she means our parents," Edd explained.  
"Our parents? You mean Mom and Dad?"  
"Yes, that's what I mean, Ed."  
"But how did they get in here, Double D?"  
"I honestly have no clue, Ed, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. She's most likely lying."  
Ed put on a quizzical face, and said, "I hope my baby sister's here, Double D. I haven't seen her in a long time."  
"She was in here with the others when we..." Edd looked up at one of the cameras, tingling as it watched their every move. Whispering, he continued, "When we fought her the first time. Sarah's probably been preserved like us, but..."  
"But what?" Ed whispered back.  
"But then she'd be trapped in this terrible place like we are."

And with that, Ed and Edd proceeded forward towards the next test chamber.

* * *

"Holy cow!"

Eddy stood before a massive wall of metal, circular in shape and towering hundreds of feet above him. He had to crane his head just to see the top of it.

"This is supposed to be a _door_?"  
"Yep!" Wheatley replied simply.  
"Man, whatever's behind something this huge must be good!" His excitement sank a little. "Uh, so how to we open it?"  
"Ah, that's the puzzle, ain't it?" Wheatley looked around from his rail at a few mechanisms near the door. "I do know this: that device over there scans for actions. I don't know what to do, but they told me that the door only opens for humans."  
"Well, I'm a human. How does this thing gonna know that?" Eddy walked toward the device. He noticed a button nearby and pressed it. After a few seconds of waiting impatiently, Eddy groaned, "Well this is gettin' us nowhere. What a hunk of junk!" He kicked the device, which caused it to beep an affirmative tone. Eddy smiled incredulously. "Why can't _everything_ work like that?"

The knob on the center of the door started to rotate itself. The floor began to shake, causing Eddy and Wheatley to huddle near each other in fear.

"Whoa! What's goin' on?" Eddy screamed.

Gigantic locks clamped around the door began to unlatch themselves, and steam hissed as a mechanism up top began to open the door up and outward. Curious, but impatient, Eddy crouched down to the ground in an attempt to see what was beyond the slowly-opening hatch. After a few seconds, it opened wide enough for him to slip through.

"Wha-what about me?" Wheatley asked. Sighing, Eddy reached up and plucked him from his rail. Together, the two crawled under the door and into the room beyond.  
"Woah."

The room they stood in was enormous, larger than many of the rooms Eddy had seen earlier in the facility. Lining the walls and stretching far up and out of view were rows upon rows of cylindrical cells, each filled with a glowing, green liquid and containing a single person. Several catwalks crisscrossed around the place, allowing Eddy to get near the cryo tubes and identify whoever was inside.

Re-attaching Wheatley to a nearby rail, he walked upon the catwalks, scanning them for anyone he knew. He walked along person after person, finding no one he had seen before, until finally...

"Wait a sec... oh my god, it's Nazz!"

Indeed, Nazz was floating inside one of the pods, unconscious like everyone else. Eddy recognized her face clearly.

"Do you recognize her?" asked Wheatley.  
"Yeah, I know her!" Eddy answered. "She can't keep her paws offa me." His smugness wore off quickly, and he put his hands on the glass. "But if Nazz's here, then that must mean the others are human popsicles as well." Eddy turned to Wheatley, and asked, "How do I get them outta these things? Do I just plug you in somewhere?"  
"I don't think I can do that, Eddy," Wheatley replied nervously. "I-I think...I think only she can."  
"Well, fat chance of that happening," Eddy scoffed. "Come on, there's gotta be another way to get someone outta here."

* * *

Ed and Edd stepped out of their respective elevators and stopped at the door before them. Looking at each other, they gulped in anticipation. They were going to get the "surprise" that GLaDOS had promised them.

Wordlessly, they stepped up to the door, which opened to reveal darkness. Bravely, the Eds stepped into the room, and the door closed behind them to surround them in the pitch black.

"`Initiating surprise in three... two... one.`"

The lights came on and the room lit up, revealing...

nobody.

The room was tiny, like one of the observation areas save for a delivery tube sitting above one of the tables.

"`I made it all up,`" GLaDOS said. A party horn sounded, and confetti came down from the tube. "`Surprise.`"

Edd smirked at the pathetic attempt of getting their hopes up, but looked to see Ed crestfallen.

"I really hope Sarah's okay," he said softly.  
"`Oh come _on_`,"GLaDOS said in a pretend-consoling voice, "`if it makes you feel any better, they abandoned you at birth, so I very seriously doubt they even want to see you.`"

Both of the boys immediately perked up.

"Wh-who?" Edd asked, confused. "Our parents?"  
"`Yes, I'm truly sorry. They just didn't want to have fat little obese children like-`"

Ed and Edd burst out laughing.

"`What? What are you two laughing at?`"  
"You!" Ed shouted.  
"For an Artificial Intelligence capable of running an entire facility and simulating a sadistic personality," Edd giggled, "you know next to nothing about manipulating people." When his laughter died down, he continued, "We grew up with our parents. We see them almost every day - well, Ed does anyway, and I communicate with mine just as much. Calling us adopted just proves you know nothing about us."  
"`Why you - just - finish this testchamber! You're not done testing yet!"`

A door opened up in front of the two, and they giggled their way into the next test.

* * *

"So how many people _do_ you know in here, Eddy?"  
"Well, I saw Nazz, Sarah and Jonny," Eddy said, standing in front of Jonny's tube. "Kevin and Rolf are probably in here as well, but we haven't found them yet."

He paused, giving off a small sigh.

"Are you sure you can't do nothin'?"  
"Positive, Eddy," Wheatley responded. "Only a human can gain access to this room, but only she can work the cryo containers."  
"That's stupid. This whole place is stupid!" Eddy screamed. "There's at least gotta be some sort of manual getter-people-outter thing for these! I just need to free Nazz so she can swoon over me and the others so I can make them pay me for rescuing them."  
"Well, now that you mention it," Wheatley pondered, "I think there is some sort of manual device in this facility."  
"You sure?" Eddy asked. Wheatley nodded. "Is it near here?"  
"I think it's in the room just opposite this one, Eddy."  
"Well what're we waiting for? Let's go!"

Wheatley glided away, and Eddy followed.


End file.
